


Complete Silence

by Irritable_Fabulamancer



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Dark Sonic character study, Oneshot, and it's not overly gory, at least compared to some stuff I've seen, but you might want to keep that in mind, don't worry nobody's dead, very angsty, yeah there's some blood in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irritable_Fabulamancer/pseuds/Irritable_Fabulamancer
Summary: Oneshot. When a mission goes horribly wrong, Dark Sonic is unleashed. But what is Dark Sonic? What are his motives? And could he really be something as simple as Sonic's evil side?
Kudos: 23





	Complete Silence

He couldn't have predicted it, of course. Neither of them could have.

It was all going so well, after all. Eggman had really screwed up this time. An underestimation of a robot here, a less-than-perfect strategic decision there, and he was left wide open.

He should have reacted faster. He should have noticed it before.

He shouldn't have held back.

"Shouldn't have pushed me so far."

Tails fell to his knees, clutching desperately at the bullet wound in his stomach. Eggman lowered the pistol.

"Let that be a lesson."

Tails managed to turn his head enough to make eye contact with his brother. Then, his eyes rolled back, and he fell.

The feeling was physical, and it felt like being hit by a truck. Sonic fell to his knees, paralysed. He tried to scream, to call his little brother's name, anything, but his lungs seized up like they were full of rocks.

He couldn't breath. Everything felt like it was underwater. The ground seemed to warp beneath his hands.

And the world

went

dark.

Black light exploded from his crumpled form. It wasn't darkness, because darkness is defined as the _absence_ of light. It was black-coloured light, that shone brightly on his surroundings, highlighting them, filtering them into the colour of obsidian.

He screamed a soul-shattering, primal scream, and black mist fell from his eyes like tears. It swirled around him as he fell silent, and slowly got to his feet.

He glared at Robotnik with pure white eyes, and no one could mistake the pure, overwhelming, _devastating_ hatred in that gaze. He maintained eye contact for only an instant, though it felt like far longer, before vanishing. The glowing black trail appeared a moment later, heralded by the shockwave of the sound barrier breaking. But although there was no mistaking the sudden harsh wind of a sonic boom, there was no sound.

He reappeared on the other side of the battlefield, Tails in his arms. The fox twitched, hacking up blood, eyes wide and blank. He knelt down, carefully laying Tails on the ground, supporting his head with one hand, and stared at the wound. It wasn't large, but with the amount it was bleeding, it had probably severed an artery. The bullet was still lodged in the hole, stopping some of the blood, but it wasn't doing much. Clearly, he would bleed to death within minutes.

So, not impossible, then. Just very, very tricky.

The black mist paused in its swirling around his feet. It raised itself over Tails like a living thing, and, twisting into thin threads, surged into the wound.

The threads curled themselves around the severed blood vessels, pulling them shut. A few more wrapped around the bullet, carefully extracting it. They dropped it into the hedgehog's hand, who looked at it pensively, before closing his fingers around it and returning his attention to the wound.

Slowly, carefully, the threads pulled the pieces of broken artery together. They paused, as the hedgehog contemplated it, then tied them into a tight knot and retreated from the wound. The bleeding stopped, but Tails was still unresponsive.

The hedgehog placed two fingers on his neck. His eyes widened slightly, and he quickly raised his hand above the fox's chest, holding it in a grasping motion. Mist flowed over his fingers, becoming long, claw-like extensions. He plunged his hand down, willing the claws to become insubstantial for a moment, then squeezed.

Tails came back with a choked gasp and a scream of pain. He shuddered violently, and rolled out of the hedgehog's grasp. The fox coughed a few times, hacking up blood, before collapsing on the ground, breathing heavily.

The hedgehog placed one hand on his shoulder. Tails looked up, tears of pain and exhaustion staining his face.

"D-Dark Sonic?"

Dark Sonic's eyes narrowed in thought. It took him a moment to reply.

"I suppose I should think of a name for myself, shouldn't I?"

Tails tried to push himself up, but collapsed again, yelling in pain. "Don't move." Dark grabbed his other shoulder, and carefully pulled him into a sitting position, propping him against a burnt tree. He took his wrist, and quickly activated the emergency beacon on his communicator. "I tied your blood vessels and restarted your heart, but you're going to need surgery." He reached out and almost absent-mindedly wiped the blood from Tails' muzzle. "Stay here, and whatever happens,  _don't move_ ." The hedgehog stood up and turned to leave.

"W-where are you..."

"I'm going to do what I exist for." Dark looked at him, expression... saddened? "Sonic will be back soon."

Tails tried to say something, but slumped, finally passing out. Dark Sonic vanished, with another silent shockwave.

* * *

He reappeared in front of all the remaining robots. They were standing in hasty formation, and pointing a very large number of guns at him.

"All right." The mist surged up from his feet, forming a grid of hundreds of small circles. "Fine."

The robots opened fire, and the grid rushed forward. A storm of tiny explosions flashed into life between them. More mist formed around him, forming into more circles and flowing smoothly into the storm.

It continued for a while, maybe around two minutes, until the robots exhausted their clips. The clicking of triggers being pulled on empty magazines echoed through the sudden silence.

As the dust cleared, Ivo Robotnik leaned forward, and then couldn't stop himself from recoiling in terror.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of bullets hung in the air, suspended by rings of mist around them. The swarm parted, revealing Dark Sonic's unharmed form.

"Just when are you going to learn?" The captured bullets turned around smoothly, and the rings grew, small tendrils pulling back, forming an almost solid block of mist. Then, the tendrils pushed forward, like an elastic band snapping into place. The bullets launched back at the robots, with enough force to tear through their metal shells and shred their delicate internal mechanisms.

The mist merged back into a single mass, and moved back, forming into a sheet. Parts of it coiled itself around Dark's body like a winged serpent.

"What you did was crossing a line, Robotnik." He vanished, and reappeared directly in front of him. Robotnik stumbled back, and Dark kept talking like nothing had happened. "I can forgive a  _hell_ of a lot, believe me, but not something like that. Not my family."

He raised his hand, and mist lashed out, snatching Robotnik's discarded pistol from the ground. The hedgehog turned it over in his hand, weighing it.

"Now – now wait just a moment, Sonic!" He raised his hands defensively. "You're a – a reasonable person, aren't you?"

Dark cocked his head. "Not really." He raised the gun, aiming it at Robotnik's heart.

"Wait! Sonic -"

"I'm not Sonic."

He fired. Robotnik closed his eyes and screamed...

... and opened his eyes. A ring of mist held the bullet in midair, centimetres from his heart.

He fell over. Dark walked calmly up to him, plucking the bullet from the air.

"But I began as a part of him. And there's no part of Sonic that's willing to kill." He looked down at him disgustedly. "Not yet, anyway."

He casually tossed the bullet aside. "This isn't important. But you should keep this one." Dark tossed something small and metal at Robotnik's feet, which he hurriedly picked up, keeping his eyes on the hedgehog.

It was another bullet. This one was crumpled from impact, and covered in a distinctive reddish-brown, slightly sticky coat of dried blood. "Consider it a reminder of how close you came."

Dark Sonic leaned forward suddenly, grabbing the man's head, forcing eye contact. "If he had died – _if you had taken my family from me_ – I wouldn't have hesitated to kill you. But as it is..." He let go, tossing him to the ground.

"You can live for a while longer. Just remember – as of now, your life is tied to his. To my family's. If  _any_ of them die, I will kill you. As  _slowly_ as I can."

Robotnik scrambled to his feet, backing away. "What  _are_ you?"

Dark Sonic narrowed his eyes, expression contemplative. "Fear, mostly. And rage. And trauma, of course." He turned away, but paused, looking at the sky thoughtfully. "I'm not...  _exactly_ the opposite of Sonic. It's more like... I'm everything he  _can't_ be." He seemed to be talking to himself, rather than Robotnik.

There was another pause, before he nodded to himself, turning back. "Silence. Call me Silence. Now run, before I change my mind."

* * *

Sonic sat outside the hospital room, slumped tiredly against the wall.

In the end, everything had worked out. When he had woken up, Eggman was gone, but all the robots were destroyed. It almost looked like they had killed each other.

And Tails was fine. Well, not _fine_. He was still injured, and had lost a lot of blood, but the paramedics had found him quickly, and the doctors had managed to stitch the wound closed fairly easily. Luckily, nothing had been damaged that couldn't be regrown with some recovery time.

A nurse left the room, and nodded at him. He got up, and walked in. Tails was sitting upright on the bed. He looked pretty good for someone who had just been shot.

"Here again, huh? We really need to be more careful."

Sonic laughed despite himself. "Are you okay?"

"Fine. Just tired, mostly. You?"

"Same." Sonic sat in the usual chair beside his younger brother, and looked at him, expression sombre. "So... Dark, huh?"

Tails' smile dropped. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"What did he do, anyway?"

"I'm not sure. He saved me, and then just... ran off."

"He didn't say anything?"

"He said..." Tails thought about it for a moment, straining to call up the blurred memories. "He said he was going to do what he exists for. And... that he needed to think of a name for himself."

"Jeez..." Sonic slumped, putting a hand to his forehead. "I still don't get any of this. I mean, he almost kills someone one day, and then saves your life the next?"

Tails thought about it for a minute. "I think..." he began, and stopped.

"What?"

"I think... Dark might want to help. In his own way."

Sonic considered that. It did make sense. "Maybe. But..." He stopped dead, as a strange feeling abruptly overtook him. It was like someone had been standing behind him, unnoticed, and suddenly whispered something.

"Sonic?"

"Silence."

"What?"

Sonic looked at Tails. "His name is Silence."

"What? How do you know?"

"No idea. I just do."

Tails looked at him concernedly. "Do you think... he'll be coming back?"

Sonic shook his head. "I don't know, Tails. I don't know."

And somewhere, in the darkest part of his subconscious, Silence looked up, and spoke.

" _I hope I never have to."_

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I felt like doing a Dark Sonic character study. I think he's a really interesting concept, and I wanted to test it out, so I made this little thing. Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, the cover was made by NannelFlannel, one of my favourite artists!


End file.
